VeeshanVault

I'm sure most people here probably have netflix, and you probably saw your inbox had another nice greeting from Netflix with yet another price hike.

The last price hike was in at the new year, so its not even 7 months old, and another is hitting in a month and a half.

This one is huge, 59% increase in sub price. So I'm basically forced to streaming only, since I only get 2 or maybe 3 movie disks a month. Will probably give Red Box a try for hard copy needs.

What are the rest of you doing? I would like to cancel, but I do use the shit out of the streaming option...although Comcast does have a lot of the shows for free on demand too, so I'm thinking I probably won't miss it anyways, and should just go back to downloading TV eps.

I've been trying to figure out why I didn't get any email from them. I would probably go DVD only if they could get back to having new releases on release date. The streaming options have been too limited with all of the other options available now.

Just one more reason why ripping is the smart way to go. I'm telling you, physical media is going to be a thing of the past sooner rather than later! I'll keep streaming and 3 out for the foreseeable future.

This kind of stinks, but I actually understand. I always felt my one disc w/ online streaming was a bargain at $10. In order to get useful content online, they had to eventually charge more then the $2 per month for it.

Fairweather Pure wrote:Just one more reason why ripping is the smart way to go. I'm telling you, physical media is going to be a thing of the past sooner rather than later! I'll keep streaming and 3 out for the foreseeable future.

No kidding. Because publishers want to get rid of the used market. And once everything goes digital good luck finding console games for $15-20 next generation. Or borrowing a game from your friend. They'll pretty much control the market at that point. More profits for them.

That's a good point. $10 does seem like a great deal IF you return and watch a movie each week. I'm too slow with the movie disk watching, so I may only get 1 or 2 movies a month via disk. the streaming I never watch movies on, its always the TV shows. I watch that a lot more, but could just as easily torrent the shows and watch them on my tv (it plays mkv files itself, which is nice).

Maybe I will cancel and see how much I miss it. If it really is super cool great time then I'll just sign back up, its not like they are giving existing customers a deal over new ones, or vice versa, so I think I answered my original question on what to do...

Aslanna wrote:

Fairweather Pure wrote:Just one more reason why ripping is the smart way to go. I'm telling you, physical media is going to be a thing of the past sooner rather than later! I'll keep streaming and 3 out for the foreseeable future.

No kidding. Because publishers want to get rid of the used market. And once everything goes digital good luck finding console games for $15-20 next generation. Or borrowing a game from your friend. They'll pretty much control the market at that point. More profits for them.

Or for movie buffs, it will be "Good luck trying to find movie X". Netflix and other streaming sites will just be fighting over rights and prices while the consumer suffers because they cannot watch the movies they want, when they want anymore when physical media is gone. Get them now, own them forever!

Movies will be like music soon.

Spotify for movies.

I can see the benefit to archiving rare movies but not the mainstream movies. I can't imagine not being able to get my hands on those easily in the future.

Interesting points regarding physical media.

Nevertheless, Netflix is still cheap as fuck, even after the price hike.

Sueven wrote:Nevertheless, Netflix is still cheap as fuck, even after the price hike.

+1

They had to do this because their contracts with the studio were specific as to a number of subscribers for a service that they could not exceed, and since they had both DVD and streaming on the same plan, but some people didn't use streaming and some didn't use DVD's the number was artificially inflated.

I got the email and I opted to go with the 1 disc at a time and drop the streaming. Soon as I get the movie in the mail I rip it and package it to send out the next day. I usually get about 2 movies a week. Now I'm running low on HD space. I'll have to invest in a 3TB drive soon so I can consolidate a bit. Right now I'm spread over a 1TB, 1TB, and a 2TB. (all external)

Sounds like Bubba and I need to talk about arranging some off site back ups!

Bubba is a slacker. I often return discs on the same day, unless they're tv shows. I hit up the post office near me with the latest pick-up.

you know...for a couple bucks more you can download many more movies via usenet. 15/month would get you 50 GB of movies a month. 30.00 would get your as many movies as you can download (250GB if that's your cap). No waiting in the mail!


Newsflix > Netflix

Winnow wrote:you know...for a couple bucks more you can download many more movies via usenet. 15/month would get you 50 GB of movies a month. 30.00 would get your as many movies as you can download (250GB if that's your cap). No waiting in the mail!

That's illegal.. So maybe some waiting in jail!

So is ripping, your point is fail (I R clever).

Where was I in support of that? Your point at making a point = fail.

On the subject of rip vs download, I would much rather rip. This way I can maintain uniformity and standards. When you DL a movie it's usually a crapshoot. Besides, as I've mentioned plenty of times already, I already have the vast bulk of movies I want in my collection. The rest is merely collecting and filling in the gaps of genres and what not. I have 66 movies in my DVD que right now. I'll have all those ripped in 3 months or less under my current plan. I add one or two here and there, but eventually I'm going to consult top 10 lists and make sure I have every "essential" movie out there in their respective genre. I've already qued up my WW2 and western movies!

Compare:

With a 50Mbps connection and Newgroups

Stock: 3 years of posted movies in various rip sizes for your convenience, xvid and HD quality available for most.

1 movie, already ripped, Newflix: 1.2 GB = ~7 minutes download time direct to hard drive

1 movie, Netflix mailed =

-48-72 hours between movies
-rip time
-repackaging time
-time to place in mail

Summary for 48 hour period:

Newgroups: 411 movies (no ripping required)
Netflix: 1 movie (ripping, mailing time required)

My rips are over 2GB each, most around 2.3. It takes less than 10 minutes to rip a movie. It takes longer than that to find, DL, and extract a movie from a newsgroup. From there, it's fake movies that you just wasted your time/bandwidth on, and often at a worse quality than what I rip at (especially sound!). Honorable mention goes out for the occasional virus too.

So, I have compared. My method works out better for me and the goals I have set out for my collection and the time/money that I choose to devote to it. I would not choose to devote nearly the time you have to collect, sort, and archive your digital art collection. After all, I can just find that stuff anywhere on the web. People who have a genuine interest will always go the extra mile.

Fairweather Pure wrote:My rips are over 2GB each, most around 2.3. It takes less than 10 minutes to rip a movie. It takes longer than that to find, DL, and extract a movie from a newsgroup.

OK so about even ~2 Gb = 10 minutes, but if you're having issues finding movies on newsgroups, you just haven't used Newsleecher with Supersearch or don't know how to filter and detect fakes. You're also talking about your own collection as opposed to Netflix.

Newsflix = assload of movies
Your Collection = however many movies you have

I used to come home at lunch and do the rip and bring the disc back to work so they could mail it out in the evening. My lunch time is consumed with my drive to and from home. I realized that I am really not in any hurry. It isn't a race to fill my hard drives. Most of the movies I have already seen anyhow.

Soon as I get around to buying my drives I'll seriously consider that offsite backup plan Fair.

Winnow please don't ruin our obsessive complusive addiction to collecting movies.

Bubba Grizz wrote: Winnow please don't ruin our obsessive complusive addiction to collecting movies.

Bubba always asks nicely! Done!

Netflix strikes again

Netflix continued its recent tightening and price-raising by making it so there can only be one streaming video feed per account.

For families that share accounts and want to be able to watch more than one instant stream at the same time, they'll have to sign up for an additional Unlimited Streaming account at $7.99 a month or increase the number of DVDs in their package. To get two streams, you need to pay $19.98/month for two DVD's at a time, or $23.98 for three streams and three DVDs, or four of both for $29.98.

My monthly bill went down after the so-called price hike.

Spang wrote:My monthly bill went down after the so-called price hike.

You canceled?

Has anyone actually received ANY communication from Netflix about the pricing changes? I think that the thing that annoys me most would be that I have yet to hear from them at all.

I got an email way back when in June discussing the upcoming changes, and that I would have to change my sub option between 8/31/11 and my next billing date after that (for me, its 9/19/11)...so I have the old plan till 9/19, and it changes to streaming only after that. Will see if streaming alone is worth it.

I've been streaming-only since March, and have received no communication. I suppose that makes sense.

I have, however, been having sporadic issues with the site wanting me to log off and back in while streaming through browser. Also, I had thought my instant queue was removed, link and all, until I realized it only did that when I was connected via Montreal. I re-pointed my VPN to LA and the instant queue was back.

I have read that they are indeed going to do away with the queue for streaming users--replacing it with some sort of bookmark or favorites feature. It sort of makes sense in the context of not needing a queue! I hope they port over streaming customers queue to their new mechanism. I like to add movies that look sort of interesting to watch later, but I would not remember if I had no queue.

Aabidano wrote:

Spang wrote:My monthly bill went down after the so-called price hike.

You canceled?

I dropped unlimited streaming.

Netflix is going backwards in the streaming department. If they want to compete, they need to find a way to stream more content. 95% of the stuff I want to watch isn't able to be streamed.

As it stands, Netflix would be an excellent stock to short as the entertainment industry seems to want to go with streaming options other than Netflix.

Netflix is currently also losing Starz as of the end of the year from what I've read. That's a huge chunk of the more current content being provided.

Winnow wrote:you know...for a couple bucks more you can download many more movies via usenet. 15/month would get you 50 GB of movies a month. 30.00 would get your as many movies as you can download (250GB if that's your cap). No waiting in the mail!


Newsflix > Netflix

And when the MPAA gets around to legal action against the news provider you'll be the proud owner of a summons and months of extortionate tactics while they try to recoup the $20 per movie they've "lost".

Most news providers don't keep logs of what people retrieve so the MPAA/RIAA would be out of luck going that route. What is posted however I'm sure is a different matter.

When (not if!) legal attention is turned on Usenet providers it will more than likely to be to shut them down or have groups removed that obviously cater to copyright infringement.


Regardless I cringe everytime I see someone "recommned" or promote Usenet for that purpose.

Aslanna wrote:Most news providers don't keep logs of what people retrieve so the MPAA/RIAA would be out of luck going that route. What is posted however I'm sure is a different matter.

When (not if!) legal attention is turned on Usenet providers it will more than likely to be to shut them down or have groups removed that obviously cater to copyright infringement.

Regardless I cringe everytime I see someone "recommned" or promote Usenet for that purpose.

They're obligated to "keep logs in accordance with their policy", the policy many places with less (or nothing) to lose can be to delete the logs immediately. That's what most anonymous proxies do. Which of course makes them the target of the suit, I'd assume that's not the case for NewsLeecher, etc... They'll roll on their users in a heartbeat.

Agree that mass uploaders would be the primary target, they aren't going to get caught unless they're stupid about it so the downloader will be the target they go after.

Aabidano wrote:They're obligated to "keep logs in accordance with their policy", the policy many places with less (or nothing) to lose can be to delete the logs immediately. That's what most anonymous proxies do. Which of course makes them the target of the suit, I'd assume that's not the case for NewsLeecher, etc... They'll roll on their users in a heartbeat.

Agree that mass uploaders would be the primary target, they aren't going to get caught unless they're stupid about it so the downloader will be the target they go after.

Newsleecher is just a news program. They don't run servers other than the SuperSearch service so I don't see what good having that list would do them.

If downloaders will be their target then they are stupid because again with no logs stored how are they going to know who retrieved what? How excatly would they "roll over" on users? If anything they'd have to do it at the ISP end but there's ways to leave your ISP in the dark as well.

We do not monitor what you download. We only monitor how much you download in accordance with your chosen account. Please understand that we only see byte data and nothing else. This ensures that you are free to download what you want.

Obviously this could be different depending on providers.

I don't fool with it, thought they were a provider. Napster tried and failed with the same defense, it's just a matter of time for them. If they really aren't keeping logs now that will be the first thing the judge orders when the time comes. The other part the order will be a gag order aimed at the users.

What percentage of users do you think are coming in via an anonymous proxy and paying with a throw away credit card? Not many at a guess.

Most everyone I know uses encryption and proxies when downloading from newsgroups.

VPN!

The only activity on newsgroups I've heard of being actively pursued for prosecution are child porn posters.

Anyway... Back on topic

Update: Netflix is now saying, in an email to GigaOM, they are not enforcing this concurrent stream limitation. The error messages some users have been seeing are just a glitch, apparently, and some Netflix customer service reps may also have been supporting the crackdown rumor—"an error" that the company is correcting. However, this policy, albeit unenforced, of only allowing one stream at a time, depending on your plan, still exists.

Personally I think it was the explosion of bad press so they blamed rumor-mongering by "customer service reps"!

I can't believe it. I don't even know what to say. How does a founder of a company who has become synonymous with "home entertainment", fuck it up this much? He is so disconnected with his customer base its beyond funny now. 10+ years of doing it right, down the drain. I wonder if their dvd division will even make it? they are adding video games, so that must be what will make it win. I do know this, if I was a major shareholder, this mother fucker wouldn't be in charge anymore after today...what a fucking joke. I guess visionaries have shelf lives too.

The streaming service will undoubtedly make it, because its embedded in everything. It was discussed above, that ridding themselves of the higher labor/material costs of mailing dvd's out and going 100% low material/labor cost streaming would be the smartest play. This move is clearly in agreement with that, imo. Now the dvd division can fail without affecting the "good name" of netflix. They can report losses, blah blah blah, and not affect the stock prices (although it will, we all know this).

I'm not saying netflix is going to go under, it won't, but no one will ever race to buy up their stocks again. I'm just in shock and awe at how success can ruin someones vision enough to self destruct a money printing machine. Must just be greed...or insanity.

edit: also, his comparing netlix to Borders is hilarious...telling his customers he wants it (DVD) to go under. hahahaha at least that is the probably the most honest thing in the email, although that's not how it was used below, you didn't really have to read between those lines.


Netflix CEO email/Blog response

[Show]

Sunday, September 18, 2011
An Explanation and Some Reflections

I messed up. I owe everyone an explanation.

It is clear from the feedback over the past two months that many members felt we lacked respect and humility in the way we announced the separation of DVD and streaming, and the price changes. That was certainly not our intent, and I offer my sincere apology. I’ll try to explain how this happened.

For the past five years, my greatest fear at Netflix has been that we wouldn't make the leap from success in DVDs to success in streaming. Most companies that are great at something – like AOL dialup or Borders bookstores – do not become great at new things people want (streaming for us) because they are afraid to hurt their initial business. Eventually these companies realize their error of not focusing enough on the new thing, and then the company fights desperately and hopelessly to recover. Companies rarely die from moving too fast, and they frequently die from moving too slowly.

When Netflix is evolving rapidly, however, I need to be extra-communicative. This is the key thing I got wrong.

In hindsight, I slid into arrogance based upon past success. We have done very well for a long time by steadily improving our service, without doing much CEO communication. Inside Netflix I say, “Actions speak louder than words,” and we should just keep improving our service.

But now I see that given the huge changes we have been recently making, I should have personally given a full justification to our members of why we are separating DVD and streaming, and charging for both. It wouldn’t have changed the price increase, but it would have been the right thing to do.

So here is what we are doing and why:

Many members love our DVD service, as I do, because nearly every movie ever made is published on DVD, plus lots of TV series. We want to advertise the breadth of our incredible DVD offering so that as many people as possible know it still exists, and it is a great option for those who want the huge and comprehensive selection on DVD. DVD by mail may not last forever, but we want it to last as long as possible.

I also love our streaming service because it is integrated into my TV, and I can watch anytime I want. The benefits of our streaming service are really quite different from the benefits of DVD by mail. We feel we need to focus on rapid improvement as streaming technology and the market evolve, without having to maintain compatibility with our DVD by mail service.

So we realized that streaming and DVD by mail are becoming two quite different businesses, with very different cost structures, different benefits that need to be marketed differently, and we need to let each grow and operate independently. It’s hard for me to write this after over 10 years of mailing DVDs with pride, but we think it is necessary and best: In a few weeks, we will rename our DVD by mail service to “Qwikster”.

We chose the name Qwikster because it refers to quick delivery. We will keep the name “Netflix” for streaming.

Qwikster will be the same website and DVD service that everyone is used to. It is just a new name, and DVD members will go to qwikster.com to access their DVD queues and choose movies. One improvement we will make at launch is to add a video games upgrade option, similar to our upgrade option for Blu-ray, for those who want to rent Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360 games. Members have been asking for video games for many years, and now that DVD by mail has its own team, we are finally getting it done. Other improvements will follow. Another advantage of separate websites is simplicity for our members. Each website will be focused on just one thing (DVDs or streaming) and will be even easier to use. A negative of the renaming and separation is that the Qwikster.com and Netflix.com websites will not be integrated. So if you subscribe to both services, and if you need to change your credit card or email address, you would need to do it in two places. Similarly, if you rate or review a movie on Qwikster, it doesn’t show up on Netflix, and vice-versa.

There are no pricing changes (we’re done with that!). Members who subscribe to both services will have two entries on their credit card statements, one for Qwikster and one for Netflix. The total will be the same as the current charges.

Andy Rendich, who has been working on our DVD service for 12 years, and leading it for the last 4 years, will be the CEO of Qwikster. Andy and I made a short welcome video. (You’ll probably say we should avoid going into movie making after watching it.) We will let you know in a few weeks when the Qwikster.com website is up and ready. It is merely a renamed version of the Netflix DVD website, but with the addition of video games. You won’t have to do anything special if you subscribe to our DVD by mail service.

For me the Netflix red envelope has always been a source of joy. The new envelope is still that distinctive red, but now it will have a Qwikster logo. I know that logo will grow on me over time, but still, it is hard. I imagine it will be the same for many of you. We’ll also return to marketing our DVD by mail service, with its amazing selection, now with the Qwikster brand.

Some members will likely feel that we shouldn’t split the businesses, and that we shouldn’t rename our DVD by mail service. Our view is with this split of the businesses, we will be better at streaming, and we will be better at DVD by mail. It is possible we are moving too fast – it is hard to say. But going forward, Qwikster will continue to run the best DVD by mail service ever, throughout the United States. Netflix will offer the best streaming service for TV shows and movies, hopefully on a global basis. The additional streaming content we have coming in the next few months is substantial, and we are always working to improve our service further.

I want to acknowledge and thank our many members that stuck with us, and to apologize again to those members, both current and former, who felt we treated them thoughtlessly.

Both the Qwikster and Netflix teams will work hard to regain your trust. We know it will not be overnight. Actions speak louder than words. But words help people to understand actions.

Respectfully yours,

-Reed Hastings, Co-Founder and CEO, Netflix

Posted by Reed Hastings at 8:59 PM

DVD by mail may not last forever, but we want it to last as long as possible.

Quoted for emphasis! When it starts winding down, I'll start getting 10+ movies out at a time and rip like a fucking madman. If I had to choose, I would take DVDs over streaming any day simply because I stream all of my rips to all of my devices. The streaming service is great for checking out movies though and I consider it a great tool for a film buff. The time is coming! Physical media will be phased out of these types of programs and you'll be limited to what they give you and you'll have no choice in the matter!

I never used the mail service but netflix streaming is going in the wrong direction for offerings. I'm done with them for now.

My monthly bill went down even further. In addition to the unlimited streaming, I dropped the mail service, too.

I wonder how investors are taking the latest news about Netflix!



Way to completely tank your stock and lose all confidence in your investors!

Maybe tomorrow they'll wake up and re-spin it all as a bad dream?

Look at the volume! how does one stay in charge of a company when you lose half its value in 3 months? half!!!

I thought I was reading ravings of someone in a nuthouse when I read that last email. I cannot understand how anyone could be in-charge of a company providing this type of service to consumers, yet be so far removed from reality. 60% increase which wasn't communicated to all customers, and those who knew were unhappy. Follow that up with this piece of shit "apology" to take advantage of publicity to announce (slide under the radar?) the eventual sell-off of the DVD service because you can't concentrate on one business type at a time. I'm honestly shocked they haven't dropped more than 50% yet. This isn't just bad customer service, this is demolishing what the company was built on just as bad customer service hits the headlines.